SOME OE THE ANIMALS FED AND SLAUGHTEEED AS HUMAN FOOD. 575 
dry nitrogenous compounds. And lastly, the average of 8 of the animals— that is, 
excluding only the store Sheep and store Pig — shows in the estimated consumed por- 
tions about 3|- parts (3-48) of dry fat for 1 of dry nitrogenous compounds. 
It would perhaps be hardly anticipated, that in the staple of our meat-diet, to which 
such a high relative flesh-forming capacity is generally attributed, there should be found 
such a large proportion of fat or woi^-flesh-forming, to nitrogenous or assumed flesh- 
forming constituents, as the flgures in the first Division of the Table would show. The 
result of such a comparison as present knowledge enables us to institute on the point in 
question, between our staple articles of Animal-iood, and Bread, will certainly not be 
less surprising. 
With regard to the second Division of the Table, in which the Fat of the animal 
matters is calculated to its supposed respiratory and fat-forming equivalent of the starch 
and o&er non-mtrogenous matters occurring in Bread, it is freely granted to the Phy- 
siologist, that It IS only in a certain broad sense, that such an assumption of equivalency 
can be admitted. It is nevertheless maintained, that for our present purpose, it is both 
useful and legitimate to adopt it. Without it, the important comparison sought to be 
instituted cannot be made; and there is evidence enough both of a practical and 
scientific kind to show, that, at least to a certain degree. Fat and the starch series of com- 
pounds are really thus mutually replaceable in our foods. 
The Table shows, then, that in Bread, there are 6-8 parts of Starch, or starch- 
eqimalent" to I part of Nitrogenous compounds. Taking the relation of the one class 
of constituents to the other in the estimated total consumed portions of those animals 
assumed to be in fit condition for the butcher, there is only one case— that of the fat 
alf—m which the proportion of the so-measured respiratory or fat-forming constituents, 
to the so-measured flesh-forming ones, was, in this our meat-diet, lower than in Bread. 
n the estimated total consumed portions of the fat Ox, the proportion of the “ starch- 
equivalent’’ of the woTi-flesh-forming material (fat), to I of nitrogenous compounds, is 6-9 ; 
or rather higher than in Bread. In the estimated consumed portions of the Fat Lamb, 
t e Fat Sheep, and the Fat Pig, the proportion of the thus estimated respiratory and 
tat-torming material to the nitrogenous matters, was rather more than time as great 
as in Bread. In the Extra-fat Sheep, it was more than twice as great. 
The average of the six cases in which the animals were supposed to be “ripe” for the 
butcher, shows, in the estimated consumable portions, nearly 10 parts of the “ starch- 
equivalent” of specially respiratory or fat-forming material, to I of nitrogenous com- 
pounds; that is, nearly li time as much as in Bread. In the Half-fat Ox, and the 
a - at old Sheep, neither of which, however, were in the condition of fatness of Oxen 
an eep as usually killed, the relation of the “starch-equivalent” to the nitrogenous 
compounds (in the consumable portions), was lower than in Bread; namely, as 3-83 to 
in the Half-fat Ox, and as 6-28 to I in the Half-fat old Sheep. 
aHng the carcasses as analysed, including bone, the relation of the no?^-nitrogenous 
s arc -equivalent) to the nitrogenous constituents, is, in them also, in most cases hiaher 
4 F 2 
